Bible

Claiming the name of Jesus with pride

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16

Whether we know it or not, we are being watched. Whenever we claim to be something, people will watch to see whether we live up to it. For example, an athlete is judged by his or her performances. And an investor is valued for his ability to make substantial amounts of money; while a police officer is judged by his ability to perform well under fire.

What is it that Christians are judged for?

When we call ourselves Christians, we are claiming to be mirror images of Christ for all the world to see. We are presenting ourselves as examples of what God had in mind when He put men and women on this earth. It is a presumptuous claim we make, and one that carries with it a considerable amount of responsibility. One of the greatest sins we can ever commit is to call ourselves Christians and then act in ways, which are unacceptable in the sight of the Lord. We must continually study the Word of God and follow the instructions God has given us, devoting ourselves to imitating Christ in all ways possible. When we fail to do so, we bring dishonor not only on ourselves but also on the entire Christian church.

Where was God in Aurora Massacre?

It’s been one week since the Aurora theater massacre, and people are still searching for answers. Some are even asking,” Where was God in Aurora massacre?” CNN asked the question on twitter. The following is some of the responses. What do you think?

By Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor

(CNN) – Where was God in Aurora?

It’s a fresh take on an age-old question: Why does God allow suffering, natural disasters or – if you believe in it – evil?

We put the question to Twitter on Tuesday and got some starkly different responses.

“In short, God was in complete control, exercising His will,” wrote @PastorRileyF, who leads a church in Bethune, Colorado.

That riled @TheTrivia Jockey, who tweeted, “If that was God’s will, God is definitely not deserving of my worship.”

Watch: Survivor of massacre says he forgives gunman

@trentpayne also took issue with the Colorado pastor: “I’m going to respectfully disagree with you Pastor. God gives free will to man, but it wasn’t his will that they die.”

The back-and-forth provoked other believers to chime in on the theological issue of God’s sovereignty vs. human free will, with many Christians seeking to explain how a sovereign God could preside over seemingly senseless bloodshed.

“It is not God’s will or want that people died in Aurora,” wrote @GospelBluesman20m. “God allowed man’s inhumanity to man, rather than intervene.”

The conversation and debate continued in the comments section of this post, with some insinuating that the massacre might be a kind of divine punishment, or at lease divine neglect:

Lenny
We as a country have been telling God to go away. We told him to get off our currency, get out of our schools, get out of our Pledge of Allegiance, take your Ten Commandments out of our courthouses, get those Bibles out of hotels and no graduation ceremonies in our churches. How can we expect God to give us his blessing and his protection if we demand that he leave us alone?

Jesse R
Liberals have made it impossible for God to be anywhere during the upbringing of a child. Can’t have any religious connotations in schools, libraries, government offices, etc., etc. Young men (and women) are growing up with no real sense of right and wrong. … We no longer have the right of religion, but rather the right from religion. Parents no longer have the ability to discipline their children. We are always looking for the excuses … violent video games and movies, bad teachers and schools … when we should be looking in the mirror. We as a society are the reasons these massacres happen. We have allowed our children to become social misfits that lead to the kind of carnage we have seen on several occasions since religion and God disappeared from what the Founding Fathers once said was a necessity of a successful democracy … faith.

Lots of readers used religious takes on the shooting to challenge the whole idea of God:

Who invited me?
How do you know the people that were killed didn’t go to hell?, and how exactly does any of this show there is a reason? Reason is obviously something that you have replaced with belief, and you threw out logic with it.

Kyle
“God doesn’t exist, so he wasn’t anywhere. Get over it. A man was evil, and he was evil because he was crazy.

Plenty of others said the shooting was the devil’s work:

Harleyxx
Evil things like this happen because Satan is the god of this world … for the time being. God will undo all the damage caused by Satan’s rebellion and man’s disobedience when the time is right. In the meantime we all experience trials and tribulation due to living in an ungodly world. That is why Jesus taught his followers the Lord’s Prayer … ‘to pray for God’s kingdom to come.’

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It was a “Dark Night” in Aurora

It was a “dark night” when a heavily armed man entered a movie theater in suburban Denver early Friday and opened fire, killing at least 12 people and injuring 58 others. Mayhem, weeping and mourning followed.

The incident, which took place, about 12:30 a.m. at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colo., occurred during midnight screenings of the new Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises.” The shooter has been identified as James Holmes.

“Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

 The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish” (Psalm 1).

What’s wrong with the world?

As the world tries to make sense of the tragedy in Colorado, many people are asking, “Why did this all too familiar drama that has terrorized places such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Arizona and Fort Hood, happened in Aurora?” This quiet suburb neighborhood is one of the most unlikely places one would expect a massacre. Nevertheless, evil has no discretion. It could spring up anywhere.

For answers, authorities turned to experts of all sorts for their theories on what kind of person would slaughter innocent strangers and then calmly surrender to the police. But so far nobody has uncovered anything in the shooter’s background that would suggest he was capable of committing such a heinous act.

Still, the killing of innocent people is not an uncommon occurrence. This horrible, despicable act happens all over the world, on an almost daily basis. Which leaves one to wonder. “What’s wrong with the world?” The answer to this question can only be found in the Word of God.

To help me explain, here is a sermon given in Charlotte by Rev. Billy Graham in 1958. Many of us were not born then, but this message is relent now just as it was relevant then.

Whose side are you on?

English: Michmethath__which_is_before_Shechem

English: Michmethath__which_is_before_Shechem (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes I think it is terribly difficult to tell whose side some of my Christian brothers and sisters are on. The words we communicate with our mouths are quite different from the things we do with our hands. Furthermore, we often get engulf in the issue of the moment, and we frequently say and do things that we later regret.

For example, on May 31, 2009, abortion Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed, while he served as an usher in his Wichita church, by anti-abortion activist, Scott Roeder. Many anti-abortion Christians celebrated the heinous act, lauded the shooter and commented that Tiller got what was coming to him. Can two wrongs make one right? No. Fighting fire with fire is most certainly not the approach Jesus would use when attempting to resolve a conflict. Suffice it to say, Jesus did not respond in kind, when he was violently nailed to the cross. Instead, He said: “Father, forgive them, for they know what they do.”

So, whose side are you really on? Is it Jesus’, (whose life is the epitome of love and all its attributes? The man who says, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,’) or is it the devil’s?

When the Patriarch Joshua was nearing the end of his life, he became worried for his people. Many of them fell back into their old ways. He felt afraid they would fall even further when he is gone. The Bible says, “Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Then he challenged them in the following words.

And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. However, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

That day the people of Israel renewed their covenant with God and declared that they will serve the Lord. Will you do the same today?